That one line from Jake (Kevin Costner) as he, Paden (Kevin Kline), Emmett (Scott Glenn), and Mal (Danny Glover) are riding into town for the last battle against a corrupt sheriff (Brian Dennehy) exemplifies everything that is great about 'Silverado'. It's a high-spirited adventure that is fun, does not take itself too seriously (well, maybe a little), and cheerfully reenacts Western clichés. It's the kind of movie where you can tell the actors had fun making it, and you have fun too.
The acting is uniformly excellent. Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, and Danny Glover all bring quiet dignity as well as low-key humor to their roles, but it's Kevin Costner who impressed me the most. As Glenn's cocky young brother, Costner doesn't even bother to contain his glee at being in a Western. He gives the most fun performance in the movie, and it's good to see a younger Costner not taking himself nearly as seriously as he does now. The supporting cast has some nice players: John Cleese shows up as a fair-minded sheriff who seems to have walked over from a Monty Python skit; Academy Award-winner Linda Hunt ('The Year Of Living Dangerously') steals scenes as a strong-willed bar owner who Kevin Kline befriends; and Brian Dennehy is thoroughly slimy as the villain.
The action is fun, and director Lawrence Kasdan shows a gift for this material (granted, he was the person who wrote 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'), and the screenplay (also by Kasdan) is joyous in the way it resurrects the Western. The movie also has one of the best action scores I've ever heard by Bruce Broughton, and I was humming the title theme as the movie concluded.
'Silverado' is a shining example of the Western genre, and it stands as one of the greatest pure entertainment Westerns ever made.
The acting is uniformly excellent. Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, and Danny Glover all bring quiet dignity as well as low-key humor to their roles, but it's Kevin Costner who impressed me the most. As Glenn's cocky young brother, Costner doesn't even bother to contain his glee at being in a Western. He gives the most fun performance in the movie, and it's good to see a younger Costner not taking himself nearly as seriously as he does now. The supporting cast has some nice players: John Cleese shows up as a fair-minded sheriff who seems to have walked over from a Monty Python skit; Academy Award-winner Linda Hunt ('The Year Of Living Dangerously') steals scenes as a strong-willed bar owner who Kevin Kline befriends; and Brian Dennehy is thoroughly slimy as the villain.
The action is fun, and director Lawrence Kasdan shows a gift for this material (granted, he was the person who wrote 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'), and the screenplay (also by Kasdan) is joyous in the way it resurrects the Western. The movie also has one of the best action scores I've ever heard by Bruce Broughton, and I was humming the title theme as the movie concluded.
'Silverado' is a shining example of the Western genre, and it stands as one of the greatest pure entertainment Westerns ever made.